


is there a ghost

by ganymede_elegy



Series: scary stories to tell in the dark [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, F/M, Ghosthunters - Freeform, Ghosts, Haunting, jon owns a haunted inn, sansa and the starks have a ghost hunter show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25507363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganymede_elegy/pseuds/ganymede_elegy
Summary: Sansa finds herself annoyingly intrigued by Jon Snow.She'd come here expecting a clean cut soldier and instead finds a mountain man, all wild hair and shaggy beard and terrible social skills. He's curt and kind of rude, but she's also watched him laughing with his employees, eyes crinkling up and it changes his whole face.He'd bought himself a haunted inn when it seems like even the idea of ghosts annoys him.Jon Snow might not see apparitions, but he is absolutely being haunted.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Meera Reed/Bran Stark
Series: scary stories to tell in the dark [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911424
Comments: 93
Kudos: 262





	1. when i lived alone

Jon's at his desk in his office, scowling down at the mountain of paperwork in front of him.

Sam usually does the paperwork, but Gilly had just given birth and Jon had insisted he at least take _some_ time off.

“I can't leave you to run everything yourself,” Sam had said, wringing his hands together, a week before Gilly was due.

“I can handle paperwork and regular work for a few weeks, Sam,” Jon had sighed. He loved Sam, he did, but the man worried far too much. “I'm not going to bankrupt us that fast.”

And that's how Jon came to be doing the bills and ledgers and a whole bunch of things he barely knew existed because Sam usually took care of that. Sam did the financial work, Gilly played hostess, Edd was the cook, and Jon did basically everything else. Sure, they have a few other employees, but the four of them are the pillars of the Inn and Jon is now missing two of them.

A knock comes at the door.

“Hey Jeyne, what's up,” he sighs, grateful for a distraction (even though these bills _need_ to get sorted, he's already put it off long enough).

“Um, there's people here,” she says hesitantly.

Jeyne had been hired as a housekeeper a few years ago. Gilly had found her through the local women's shelter and had taken her on (as an abuse survivor herself, Gilly never passed on an opportunity to help others that were like her). Jon never asked what her ex-husband had done to her, but Jeyne is still twitchy and quiet and seems scared of him a lot of the time. With Gilly gone, it's worse.

“Is Wyn around?” he asks. “Can she get them booked in?”

Jeyne hesitates and Jon waits patiently for her to gather up her courage (he had made the mistake once of trying to push her for information. He thought he'd been nice about it, but Jeyne had avoided him for a full month after that.)

“They aren't... they aren't guests, really,” she says, looking him in the eye, which he considers a huge success. “They say they're from some show? Direwolf Productions? Some ghost hunter thing.”

Jon groans and rubs his hands over his face. He'd responded to their inquiry email that now was not a good time, they could try again later (when Sam and Gilly were back, so that Jon wouldn't have to deal with this, preferably).

“I'll handle it, thanks Jeyne.”

She nods and he watches her almost dip into a curtsy before she remembers herself and she wobbles a little on her feet before leaving the room.

Honestly, that may have been one of the best interactions they've ever had.

When he gets out to the reception area, Wyn is there chatting away with a group of people who Jon swears can't be older than college aged. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised to find out if some of them were still in high school.

“Oh, here's one of the owners,” Wyn says when she sees him emerge from the back room. “This is Jon Snow.”

He nods at them and says “I thought I was pretty clear in my email that this wasn't a good time.”

Jon knows he's not the best at social interaction, that's why Gilly runs the front of the house and Jon works in the background. The closest Jon usually comes to interacting with people is when one of the others gets sick and he needs to fill in – host, bartender, server, you name it, Jon will do it and he can usually paste a smile on his face fine enough. But this is different.

He's really sick of ghost hunters.

The group is all looking at him now. There's three woman and two men. One of the women is short and she's got one eyebrow cocked at him and her arms crossed. She doesn't look angry at his statement, more bemused. There's another girl next to her, a little taller, brown curly hair, who yawns and looks bored. The last girl is... well, maybe Jon shouldn't look at her right now. She is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen in real life. She's taller than the others with long red hair that he likes _very_ much. She's frowning at him, blue eyes narrowed in annoyance at his rudeness.

One of the guys is huge, he dwarfs the shortest girl as he stands behind her. The other boy is taller and younger looking, and he's got a small smile on his face.

It's this boy who finally talks.

“Hi, I'm Bran Stark,” he says, stepping forward and holding out his hand for Jon to shake, which he does. “I'm the one who emailed you.”  
  


“Yeah, hi,” Jon says, shooting a look at Wyn who is currently watching with glee. She loves watching Jon try to deal with the ghost stuff. “Like I said, this isn't a good time.”

“And I get that,” Bran says with a small, knowing smile. “But we'd like to release this episode on Halloween and to do that, we need to have time to film and edit before then. We don't have a lot of time left.” When he's done speaking, Bran shoots a look over at the redhead, who gives him a look back, then sighs.

“We're a small production,” the girl says, stepping forward. “It would be _so_ _helpful_ if you'd let us do this.” She gives him a full on Disney princess pout, complete with wide eyes and a trembling lip.

Jon is not an idiot, he absolutely knows she's trying to manipulate him, but he falls for it anyway.

“Let me see if I can get my partner to come in for a few days,” he huffs. “Two of the owners just had a baby, they usually handle this stuff.”

“Would you?” the redhead breathes and Jon hates how easy he is.

* * *

Wyn gets the group settled in some rooms. They request the most haunted ones, of course. Their kind of people always do.

Jon knew what he was getting into when he bought The Harrenhal Inn. It had been a tavern once, and seen too much tragedy. Set deep in the woods, it was famously haunted and the last owners hadn't wanted to deal with it and let it fall into ruin. Which is how Jon, Sam, and Gilly (three young adults with a small bit of money and little experience) could afford such a huge, historic place. The sellers had wanted _out._

They'd bought the place. Sam did the budgets and finances. Gilly had planned out the décor and hired staff and took care of marketing. Jon did everything else. It had fallen into disrepair and since back then they barely had enough money to eat anything more than ramen most nights, he did a lot of the repairs himself. And despite his lack of social niceties, Jon was good at negotiating contracts with vendors and anyone else. Sam was too afraid to argue with people and Gilly had no interest, but Jon was a natural at planning and leading (he could've gone further in the Watch, he remembers Mormont telling him, but Jon had wanted out after his initial five year contract was over. He didn't want to be in the place where he'd watched the girl he loved die).

So yes, when they bought the place, they knew it was considered “haunted”. Maybe one of the most haunted places in Westeros, according to some websites. They'd been banking on it, actually, to bring in guests. And it does. Jon doesn't mind the guests, they're mostly silly and they like to spend their money on dumb souvenirs in the little gift shop Gilly set up. But the TV shows are worse.

Jon usually avoids them. He lets Sam and Gilly handle the media.

“I've never heard of them,” Gilly's voice comes over his phone. Sam has put him on speakerphone and the three of them are currently debating what to do. “Direwolf Productions?”

“I think the name of the actual show is The Ghost Sisters,” he says with a frown. “Which I think is confusing. It sounds like the sisters are supposed to be the ghosts.”

Jon had been surprised to hear that the sisters in question were the very short girl, Arya, and the tall redhead, Sansa. The other girl, Meera, was the camera operator, and the last member, Gendry, was general labor. Jon could relate.

“Hold on, I'm Googling it,” Gilly says and he waits. “Ok, it looks like it's a YouTube show?”

“Makes sense,” Jon says. “There's only a few of them and they seem like kids. Like early twenties?”

“Ok old man,” Gilly laughs and Sam snorts in the background. Jon smiles. It's always been an inside joke that Jon is secretly a grumpy eighty year old man on the inside. On the outside, he's just shy of thirty.

“You won't need us there full time,” Sam says and Jon gets the sense that he and Gilly are having a silent conversation between themselves on the other end of the phone.

It's been the three of them for years now, but it's times like this that he remembers it's actually the two of them and Jon. They're married and now they have a baby. Jon isn't a part of that.

“We can come in, deal with the ghost people, and then get home, no problem. My sister can watch little Sam for a few hours. She can even come to set and then we won't even have to be too far away from him.”

Jon sighs. “It's only been a few weeks, you can say no.”

Gilly laughs. “I'm not going to lie, the idea of leaving him for even a few hours kills me, but I'll need to do it sometime, right? Plus, we _are_ going a little stir crazy being cooped up here together all day.”

They work out the details and Jon prepares to talk to the ghost hunters again.

* * *

Jon busies himself away from the production during the day. One of the guest rooms has a bad floor, so he spends his time going out, finding replacement wood (trying to match up the size and age of the original hardwood). He's back from a lumber yard and getting out of his pickup truck back at the Inn when she finds him.

“Sam says you won't do interviews,” she says, standing by the bed of the truck. “Why?”

Jon sighs and closes the door and heads for the Inn.

“Because I don't,” he says and she follows him.

“That's not an answer,” she's following behind him up the stairs.

Jon ignores her and gets up to the bedroom and surveys what needs to be done. It's not a huge area that needs to be replaced, and luckily they can hide it by rearranging the furniture if the boards don't match up perfectly and look out of place.

“We really want to get your experience,” the girl says. Sansa, her name was.

He sets himself down on the floor, his toolbox is already here, and begins to pry up the old, rotting boards. “I don't have any,” he tells her. “Been here nearly six years, never seen a fucking ghost.”

Jon usually doesn't tell guests this. He usually just says he doesn't want to talk about it and they can interpret that however they want. But he gets the feeling Sansa won't leave it at that.

“What?” she says, sounding genuinely confused.

_Ah,_ Jon thinks. _She's a believer._

Jon has found, over the years, that most of the people who host these ghost hunting shows don't actually believe in what they say, but every once in a while you get one that truly believes.

“But,” she continues, “I was watching Ghost Seekers and...”

Jon groans. He knows where this is going.

The Ghost Seekers was a show that had come here a few years back, and the host had been aggressive in getting him in front of the camera. Jon had declined, as usual, but unbeknownst to him, they'd secretly recorded him saying his famous “I don't want to talk about it.” They'd blurred his face because he hadn't signed their waver, and they edited it to make it look like he'd been too scared to talk about the things he'd seen.

It had been a disaster. Everyone found it _hilarious_. Even Jeyne had giggled when Edd started making spooky ghost noises at Jon anytime he walked by.

Jon looks up at the girl and her eyes are round and hopeful. It's not manipulation this time, it's genuine. She thinks he has a story to tell, and she _believes_.

He sighs. “Look, I'm sorry, when I told them I didn't want to talk about it, it's because I don't have anything to talk about. You work on a show, I'm sure you're aware that these things are edited to make it look more dramatic than it actually is.”

She chews on her bottom lip and he finds that more distracting than he should, so he turns back to his work and pries up a second floorboard. He keeps working and she doesn't say anything else, but she doesn't leave. And he knows she'll say something eventually. People like her always do.

_Believers_.

To say Jon is a skeptic is an understatement. He doesn't just not believe in ghosts, he doesn't believe in _anything_.

Well, no. He believes in himself. He believes in Sam and Gilly and his employees and the few friends that he does have. What he doesn't believe in is ghosts and gods and all the things people tell themselves to make them feel safer in the dark.

“You won't give an interview at all?” she finally says. “Even if it's not about the hauntings?”

“Why would you want an interview that isn't about ghosts?” he asks, still not looking back up at her (he's a little afraid of what he'll agree to if he looks at her).

“Well,” she's hesitant, “we're also trying to incorporate _your_ story into the show. Like, we already interviewed the prior owners and they mentioned you guys were only, what, twenty three, twenty four when you bought the place? We want to know your story. Why were you drawn here?”

Jon laughs at that. He wasn't _drawn_ here, he _fled_ here. And he's lucky Sam and Gilly followed. “You make it sound more profound than it was. I had some money from the Night's Watch and needed a new career. We found this place and bought it.”

“You were in the Watch?” she asks and he curses himself. She's going to ask about the Nightfort.

Sure enough: “have you been to the Nightfort?”

He sighs. “The Nightfort was de-garrisoned decades ago, but yes, I've been there and no, I didn't see any ghosts.”

He's pulled up the last of the bad floorboards and begins taking measurements and writing them down in the small notebook he carries around for things like this. She watches him do this and he finds it unnerving. He wishes she would leave and let him work in peace. Leave him alone. He's much better alone.

He stands up and picks up the rotted floorboards to take downstairs. She steps out of his way and he goes back outside and she doesn't follow.

* * *

They try a different tactic, much to his annoyance.

It's the younger sister that finds him next. Arya.

“Sansa's real upset,” Arya says, hopping up to sit on the edge of the truck bed.

Jon has his sawhorses set up outside and he's about to start cutting the new boards to size. He looks up at the girl.

“Didn't mean to upset her,” he grumbles, lifting his shoulder in a half shrug.

“I get it,” Arya takes a bite of an apple that she pulls out from somewhere and continues talking with her mouth full. “She can be real annoying about this stuff.”

Jon suddenly wants to defend Sansa and he's not really sure why.

“Look, I'm a skeptic, too,” Arya says, twisting the apple in her hand. “I mean, that's what I play on the show. Sansa's the believer, I'm the skeptic.”

“Your sister really does believe,” Jon points out. He's only talked to her once and he knows this. Arya nods.

“Our parents and older brother were killed in a car crash when we were kids,” she says and Jon doesn't know what to say to that, so he puts the first board onto the sawhorses and picks up the electric saw. “She says mom came to her the night they died, before we ever found out. Our little brother, Rickon, says he saw dad.”

Rickon isn't with them, but considering how young they all are, Jon assumes Rickon is underage and therefore not on their show. From what he's overheard from their conversations, he thinks Bran is around eighteen or nineteen, Arya around twenty one, and Sansa around twenty two or three. All he really knows is that Sansa recently graduated college, Arya is about to, and Bran is still in it.

“I didn't believe her for the longest time,” Arya continues on. “We used to get into horrible fights about it.”

“You believe her now?” Jon asks and he's not sure why. He shouldn't get involved with these people.

“We started this show because Bran thought it up. He and Meera wanted to make a show, they're film nerds, and he's always been interested in this shit, I think because of Sansa and Rickons's stories. But he said he and Meera aren't ' _good for camera_ ' so he roped me and Sansa into it. Our whole schtick is that we're sisters, but one of us believes and the other doesn't.” She takes another bite of her apple and seems to hesitate before she continues on. “I've seen some stuff and honestly I'm not sure what I believe anymore.”

“Well,” Jon says. “I do know what I believe, and it's definitely not ghosts. I have no stories and I'm not an interesting person. Sorry to disappoint.”

Arya pauses again. “You were in the Night's Watch?” He nods. “Cool, so like you know how to shoot a gun? Have you met the Wildlings? Are they really terrorists? Are the Rangers real? Do they really assassinate world leaders?”

Jon hadn't been expecting this and he barks out a laugh.

“Yes, I can shoot a gun. Yes, I've met Wildlings. Yes, they're considered a terrorist organization. And I have no idea about the Rangers, I never got high enough in the ranks to find out.” (He did. He knows the Rangers exist. He'd been one. He will not tell Arya about this.)

He and Arya start talking about the history of the Watch and somehow they get onto sports and he finds he enjoys her company. He shouldn't. He really should not be getting himself involved with these people.

* * *

They try with Bran next.

“We're trying a different angle here,” he explains. “So many shows have done episodes on Harrenhal, we want to be _different_.”

“I'm really not that interesting,” Jon says again for what feels like the millionth time. “I promise.”

“You don't have to talk about the haunting. Just a brief interview about buying the hotel and it's history.”

“Sam and Gilly can give you that. Hell, Edd will talk to you about running the kitchen and his haunted soup if you're looking for human interest pieces.”

Jon has already replaced the floorboards and now he's buffing them and staining them to match the original color. It's humid out today and he feels sweaty and he'd really like a shower, and the last thing he wants is for ghost hunters to be pestering him.

The other girl, Meera, is with Bran. Jon thinks they're dating.

“Ok look,” Meera says and Bran shoots her a look, but she continues talking. “What we want is an interview with you. Period.”

“ _Why?”_

“Do you really not know? After that Ghost Seekers episode, you're a legend.” Jon looks up at her in confusion and she rolls her eyes. “You're a mystery. Everyone thinks you have some missing piece of information. You refuse interviews and you won't be on camera and the only photo anyone has ever found of you online is some newspaper article about some medal you won. You are the ghost hunting community's white whale.”

“Meera,” Bran groans, like she's just ruined everything.

Jon stares at her and he's not sure how to feel about this. There's no way this is true. She's trying to stroke his ego or something. Make him feel important.

He goes back to his work.

* * *

Later that night, he's back in his house.

He lives in a small bungalow in the woods behind the Inn. It used to be a barn, but he'd converted it into a place to live so that he wouldn't be too far if they needed him. Gilly and Sam had an apartment in town.

He resists the urge to Google himself and he manages not to for a few hours. Finally, though, his curiosity gets the best of him and he does it.

Jon Snow is a common name, but when he adds Harrenhal, he finds an entire reddit page dedicated to him. In fact, he finds an entire subreddit dedicated to him. The first posts are dated back to the airing of the Ghost Seekers episode. People wanting to know who he is, what his story is, why he didn't want to be filmed. It's a little terrifying as he scrolls through the posts and people find his name, find out about his stint in the Night's Watch (he's eternally grateful that no one has apparently been able to hack any info on him from the Watch itself), they find out about the medal of honor he'd gotten from the Watch (bullshit, he thinks. A bullshit award for killing people and he doesn't deserve it. There's nothing honorable about what he'd done.)

The whole thing is unnerving. People were really out there talking about him and he'd had no idea. And there's a lot of comments on these posts.

He wonders if he should just do an interview so it'll stop. Once he talks, they'll lose interest and he can go back to being anonymous, like he thought he was before.

* * *

“I'll do it.”

He finds them at breakfast the next day, all sitting around and discussing their plans. They all stop eating to turn and stare at him.

“ _Really?_ ” Sansa asks, looking shocked and disbelieving. He nods. He can _feel_ his defensive body language, shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep in his pockets, eyes looking anywhere but at them. No wonder she doesn't believe him.

“Googled yourself, huh?” Arya asks in amusement. “I guess being honest worked.” This last part she directs at Meera, who nods.

“He seems like someone who would appreciate the straightforward approach.”

Meera is right, but this only makes Jon frown. He doesn't like that these people can read him.

“One interview,” Jon says. “And we straighten this shit out.”

They all nod eagerly and Jon leaves them to the rest of their breakfast.

* * *

“He _what_?” Sam asks, eyes wide.

“He agreed to be on the show!” Gilly says, grinning. “I can't believe it, either.”

“I'm just going to sort out that Ghost Seekers nonsense,” Jon grumbles.

They're sitting in the office and Sam and Gilly are enjoying this way too much. The door bursts open and Edd is there, Wyn and Jeyne behind him.

“Is it true?” Edd asks and this might be the most excited Jon's ever seen him. “Jon's gonna be on the show?” Gilly nods and Edd holds his hands up in front of him as if in prayer. “Thank you,” Edd says, eyes to the ceiling, “for this gift.”

Behind him, Wyn and Jeyne laugh (Jon would tell them to get out, but Jeyne is laughing, so he lets them stay).

* * *

When he sits down for the interview, he feels like he's going to vomit.

He doesn't want to do this. There's a reason he's all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, far enough away from the Nights Watch that he doesn't feel their presence looming over him. He clearly didn't run far enough. He should've gone to Dorne.

Sansa will be his interviewer and he wishes it weren't her. She makes him even more nervous.

Bran and Meera have a camera and a ring light on him and Gendry holds a mic and Jon wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans.

Gods he doesn't want to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I don't know.
> 
> I wrote this last night when I couldn't sleep and I was watching ghost hunter shows and tbh I have no idea where this is going. It started out as a one shot and was supposed to be fairly lighthearted, but the angst and backstory kept creeping in and now it's not a one shot. I don't know how dark this is gonna go, but I rated it cause it's got some language and talks a lot about death and violence?


	2. is there a ghost in my house

The night their parents and Robb die, Sansa goes down to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Uncle Benjen is snoring on the couch in the living room in the dark, TV flickering. She doesn't turn on any lights so as not to disturb him (he had a long day of wrangling Arya and Rickon) and so when she opens the refrigerator door, it's blindingly bright inside. She grabs the water pitcher and turns around and has to blink against the darkness of the kitchen.

She pauses, confused, because mom is standing by the back door. The faint moonlight coming through the glass panes outlines her but keeps her face in shadow, but Sansa knows its her mom. What she doesn't understand is why mom is here, because mom and dad are taking Robb to his baseball camp and they won't be home until tomorrow (she's going to miss Robb this summer, but she put on a brave face when he left).

“Mom?” she says but her mom stays silent. “Where's dad?”

She moves closer and as her eyes adjust back to the dark, she gets a better look and mom is pale and staring at her, eyes too wide. Mom lifts up a hand and reaches for her and opens her mouth but all that comes out is a strangled hiss and Sansa gasps and drops the water pitcher. It shatters to the floor and she hears Uncle Benjen shout awake but she can't take her eyes off mom, taking slow, shuffling steps towards Sansa, hand outstretched.

But then the kitchen light has turned on and mom is gone.

* * *

Sansa believes in ghosts, how could she not?

She knows they're real. Bran is fascinated by ghosts, but she's not sure if he actually believes in them, or if he's more interested in the science and technology behind ghost hunting. Arya just likes staying up all night in spooky old places. But even though Sansa believes ghosts are real, there's a lot of times they go to a place and nothing happens at all.

The first couple times, they'd been disappointed and eventually Bran started fabricating sounds to give them _something_ for the cameras. Sansa hates this. She doesn't want to fake ghosts when they aren't there, it takes away from the validity of the real thing. But Bran says they're trying to make a show and no one is going to watch thirty minutes of Sansa and Arya sitting around a house playing Go Fish.

Sometimes they _don't_ have to fabricate things, like when they'd gone to High Hart and had a thermal video capture of what looked like a stooped old woman walking right behind Arya. That had shut Arya right up. Before High Hart, Arya had been full skeptic, all eye rolls and sarcastic comments anytime Sansa said something, camera rolling or not. After High Hart, Arya still played the skeptic on camera, but Sansa could tell she wasn't quite so sure anymore.

* * *

The Harrenhal Inn is Bran's obsession.

Their filming schedule is tough. Sansa is out of school, but Arya's in her last year and Bran is in his second (Meera as well). Gendry never went to college, but he has a full time job, so getting them all together to go travel around Westeros can really only be done in the summer and on breaks. They try to shoot as much as they can all at once (and dress in season-inappropriate clothing to make it seem spookier, like it's autumn instead of the middle of summer). They supplement their standard episodes with Q&As and behind the scenes videos.

They're starting to pick up steam. They have thousands of subscribers now and they're making some money off ad revenue and their Patreon. It's not a lot, not a replacement for a salary, but it's enough that Bran could afford a better camera and a ring light.

To supplement their income and pay for travel expenses, Sansa works at a restaurant in Riverrun and Gendry works at the auto shop, while Arya, Bran, and Meera attend River University (Rickon is still in high school and insists on joining them once's he's eighteen). She guesses at some point she should get another job and at least _try_ and put her degree to use, but she hasn't yet. When she thinks about working in an office, with a set schedule, she starts to panic.

They still live with their grandparents, who had taken them in after mom and dad and Robb died (they had wanted to go with Uncle Benjen, but Sansa understands now why they didn't. Uncle Benjen was single and lived in an apartment and was not prepared to take on four children, so instead they went South, away from Winterfell).

The Harrenhal Inn isn't far from Riverrun and Bran had taken an interest in it six years ago when he read an article about new owners buying the 'most haunted hotel in Westeros'. His obsession had only grown after that Ghost Seekers episode. When they started their own show, Harrenhal was the first place on their list.

They'd put it off, Bran wanted more experience before they tackled _the one_.

They've been doing this show for a little over a year and there's been some interesting emails from people wanting to sponsor them and Bran thinks if they can really nail this Harrenhal episode, they might even be able to get a deal with a network or something.

Sansa remembers him writing the name Jon Snow on the board and telling them all that they _needed_ to get him for an interview. Sansa hadn't paid attention to the particulars of why, but she memorized the photo of him anyway (a blurry picture from a newspaper of a serious-faced young man in a Watch uniform accepting a medal).

* * *

Bran warns them that Jon Snow will be elusive and they'll have to work hard to track him down. Apparently he avoids any ghost hunting shows, disappearing from the grounds, especially after the Ghost Seekers. Bran even hints to Sansa that she should flirt with him to persuade him to agree to an interview. She rolls her eyes but doesn't argue. It's not something she's proud of, but she can't deny it's gotten them access to things in the past (most people aren't overly accommodating to a bunch of college kids trying to film a YouTube video, but some are when you smile and open your eyes real wide and tilt your head to the side like what they're saying is the _most interesting_ thing in the world).

So when they get to the inn and Jon Snow is introduced to them within three minutes of being on the premises, she's a little surprised. Bran had made it sound like this Jon Snow character was a ghost himself.

He's not a ghost, but he's not exactly the boy in the newspaper photo, either. That boy had been a soldier, young, clean cut, full uniform. The man who comes out of the back room is older, obviously, with a thick beard and long hair that curls around his chin. Instead of the uniform, it's a pair of work jeans and a black t-shirt.

He's also rude as fuck.

But she does her thing and gives him her doe eyes and he doesn't kick them out.

* * *

She finds herself annoyingly intrigued by Jon Snow.

She can't figure him out.

She'd come here expecting a clean cut soldier and instead finds a mountain man, all wild hair and shaggy beard and terrible social skills. He can't be more than thirty, though.

He's curt and kind of rude, but she's also watched him laughing with his employees, eyes crinkling up and it changes his whole face. She's watched him calmly soothe the one girl, Jeyne, when she'd dropped a vase and it had smashed on the floor. Jeyne avoids Bran and especially Gendry and she won't look any of them in the eye and Sansa feels pretty safe assuming she'd come from an abusive home, but Sansa has watched Jon treat her with a patience and kindness that she hadn't expected.

He'd bought himself a haunted inn when it seems like even the idea of ghosts annoys him.

She cannot make heads nor tails of him and it annoys her.

* * *

When she brings all of this up to Arya later that night (after she, Arya, _and_ Bran have failed to convince him to do an interview), Arya rolls her eyes. Arya turns to Bran and says “hey, what's the protocol for one of us wanting to fuck an interviewee?”

Sansa feels herself turn bright red as Bran shrugs and says “I'd prefer if you'd at least wait until we're finished filming.”

“I hate you both,” she hisses and goes back to her room, Arya's laugh following down the hallway.

It's times like these Sansa's glad they added Gendry to production. Now Gendry and Arya room together and Sansa gets a room to herself. She won't have to deal with any more of Arya's nonsense.

She gets ready for bed and tries to sleep, but she's so aware of every slight noise. They'd asked for the three most haunted rooms, but Sansa has the least haunted of the three. They had agreed that if something did happen at night when they weren't filming, it would be better if there were two witnesses instead of one, which means Sansa loses out. As usual. As the only single one.

She tries to imagine Willas ghost hunting and the thought makes her laugh. She wonders what Willas thinks of her doing it, if he even knows. He would probably tell her to be safe and that she was doing a good job. Willas was always kind.

Sansa has had exactly two boyfriends, Joffrey in high school and Willas in college. Joffrey had been terrible to her (she looks back now and realizes it had been emotionally abusive, but back then she thought that's what love was. Didn't every TV show glamorize the asshole with a heart of gold? It took Sansa much too long to realize that Joffrey was an asshole with no heart at all).

Willas was the exact opposite. She dated him because he was overly kind and polite to her. A little boring (according to Arya), but at least she was treated with respect. It hadn't lasted, though. She had tried to love Willas, but there was always a disconnect between them. Willas tried to understand her, had tried to be respectful of her beliefs, but he had never quite gotten her obsession with ghosts, seances, psychics. He never understood her grief. Gods knows he tried, though.

Sansa groans and turns over and buries her face into the pillow. She has no idea why she's thinking about Joffrey and Willas right now. She should be getting sleep, or at the very least, thinking about the investigation.

* * *

Bran is ecstatic when Jon Snow agrees to an interview.

It's decided that Sansa will ask the questions. Arya doesn't like interviewing people, she gets annoyed when they give dumb answers or are too dramatic, so that leaves Sansa as the other host.

Bran, Meera, and Gendry aren't 'camera people', but it's not like they're never on the show. Bran says it gives them more authenticity to show the crew sometimes, so they do. Their viewers have really taken a shine to Gendry, in particular. Sansa remembers making a Q&A video and forcing him to sit between her and Arya as they answered fan questions about him. He'd been miserable, it was one of their most popular videos.

When Jon shows up for the interview, she wants to roll her eyes. He's got on the same shirt he'd been working in that day and it's covered in dust and grime. At least he's washed his hands and there's nothing on his face, but he still looks a mess. Plus, she thinks his beard and hair are _out of control_.

“Can we do something about this?” she asks, waving her hands at his beard.

“My face?”

She sighs. “No, the whole _I've been living underground for five years_ look.” He looks put off by that and brings a hand up to rub at his beard. “Look,” she says, trying a different tactic, “you want people to think you're just a normal guy with nothing to hide right? This look you've got going on screams _tinfoil hat_. And you have literal dust on your shirt.”

He looks down, like he hadn't even noticed. She's never met anyone as attractive as he is that cares so little about their appearance (look, she may have taken offense to Arya's joke last night, but she can tell that Jon is attractive, she's mature enough to admit that. She'd been quite distracted yesterday watching him pull up old floorboards. His arms were nice).

“I guess it's been a while since I did something with this,” he concedes, still scratching at his beard.

They take a reset and Jon leaves the building and walks out into the woods and Sansa isn't so sure Jon _isn't_ a crazy person. Does he _live_ in the woods?

When he comes back a while later, he's got his beard trimmed and it looks like he's even taken a shower and he's at least put on a new black t-shirt.

“Ok?” he says when he sits down in the chair again and all she can really do is nod. She might be very distracted during this interview.

Bran sets up the light and Gendry gets the mic (they're going to need to invest in better mics at some point, she thinks. Smaller, more discreet ones that they can just pin to people's clothes instead of Gendry having to hold one). When they turn the ring light on, Jon shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. Usually the people they interview are excited to be on camera, but he absolutely does not want to be here. Bran turns on the camera.

She starts off easy.

“Ok Jon, tell us where you're from.”

“North,” is all he says and doesn't elaborate and she wants to roll her eyes again. It's quite obvious he's from the North. He's got a thick Northern accent and he's got the dark hair and gray eyes. He's the North personified (she'll admit, when she first saw him in the lobby of the inn, a wave of nostalgia had rushed through her at the sight of him, a second painful one following when he first spoke).

“Ok, what town,” she sighs.

“Last Hearth,” he says and that explains how thick his accent is. That's _very_ North.

“We're from Winterfell, originally,” she says, trying to put him at ease. His eyes look her over and she feels herself flush and she quickly laughs “I know I don't look like it. Our mom was from Riverrun, but dad was from Winterfell. Arya's the only one who takes after dad, Bran, Rickon, and I take after mom. Robb took after mom, too,” she says and immediately regrets it. They don't talk about Robb or their parents on camera. They'll have to make sure to cut all this out.

Jon just nods like he knows who Robb is and she remembers that Arya tried to use that to convince him to do the interview.

“You were in the Night's Watch?”

“Yeah.”

She stares at him, but that's all he says.

“What was that like?”

“Cold?”

She can feel a headache coming on.

“Where were you stationed?”

“Here and there.”

Sansa wants to rip her hair out. Jon Snow is, without a doubt, the most difficult person to interview, and they're only on the easy questions.

“Did you ever kill anyone?” Arya's voice pops in from the side and Jon doesn't look at her and doesn't say anything.

Sansa wants to tell Arya to not interrupt, she can feel Jon clamming up even more after that question. It wasn't completely off topic, if Jon has dealt closely with death before, it would probably make him a bigger target for spirits. But it definitely isn't a question he wants to answer, even though his silence speaks for itself. Sansa doesn't think she's ever met anyone who's killed people before (she feels like she _should_ feel scared or something, but she doesn't).

“The Watch is where you met Sam and Gilly, right?”

He seems to relax a bit at this. “Sam, yeah. He was intelligence and we worked together on an assignment. Gilly wasn't in the Watch, she was a waitress in Mole's Town.”

Sansa already knows this from both Sam and Gilly, but hearing it from Jon at least lets her know that he isn't going to lie. It seems like he's going to tell her the truth or simply not answer if he doesn't like the question.

“Why'd you leave?”

“My contract was up.”

“You didn't want to stay? Officers in the Watch are well paid and highly respected, you didn't want to try for that?”

He looks her in the eye and doesn't say anything and she feels a shiver run down her spine.

“Ok, so when you left, why Harrenhal?”

He shrugs.

“We wanted out of the North. Found a sale listing for this place, we could afford it with our severance pay and what Gilly had saved up.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“No.”

“So you bought a haunted hotel because you didn't think there would be anything to worry about?”

“I bought a haunted hotel because it was cheap and our original plan was to fix it up and sell it to someone else. We just ended up keeping it.”

“How long have you owned it?”

“About six years.”

“Have you ever seen any ghosts?”

“No.”

“Heard any noises you can't explain?”

“No.”

“Seen anything move? Cabinets open when they shouldn't be? Furniture moved overnight?”

“This is an old building,” he says. “It's not level, sometimes doors swing open if they're not shut properly. The building settles and it makes noises. We're in the middle of the woods with animals that make noise at night.”

“So you _have_ experienced these things, you just think you have a reasonable explanation for it?”

“I _know_ I have a reasonable explanation for it.”

“And what about the voices people hear? The ones the other shows have caught on tape? The thermal imaging of people that aren't there? Light's flickering?”

“Faked, probably,” he shrugs. “I don't know what voices you mean, I've never watched any of the shows. And again, this is an old building, flickering lights can be caused by bad wiring.”

“Wait, you've _never_ seen any of the evidence the other hunters have captured?” Jon shakes his head and she can feel Bran shift in excitement behind her. “Are you even here when they're doing their investigations?”

“No.”

“And you say the lights are caused by bad wiring, but aren't you the handyman? Are you saying you did a bad job wiring the place?”

Bran's joy is _radiating_ off him and Sansa can see out of the corner of her eye that Arya has a full on smirk on her face.

She looks back at Jon, who's staring at her and she can see his jaw clenching under his beard.

“Don't you think,” she pushes on, feeling a thrill of triumph, “that it's a little presumptuous of you to make conclusions without seeing any of the evidence? And you seem to be either lying about your own work or you're saying you allow faulty wiring in your business.”

Jon doesn't answer and Sansa waits, on the edge of her seat. She _has_ him.

“We're done,” he says instead of answering and he gets out of the chair and leaves the room.

Sansa sits in disbelief before turning to the others. Most of them also look shocked, but Bran looks joyous.

“Sans, that was great!” he says, grinning. “Go after him!”

“He clearly doesn't want to continue talking to me,” she points out.

“On camera, no,” Bran says. “But maybe off camera?”

With that, he shoves one of their mini recorders into her hands and motions for her to go.

* * *

She finds Jon on the back porch, staring off into the woods.

He doesn't look at her but she can tell by the way he tenses up that he knows she's there. She plays with the recorder in her pocket, hesitant to turn it on. She's not Bran, she doesn't like tricking people. But if she could get him to admit something, the audio would be priceless.

She turns it on.

“Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you're bad at your job, or purposefully putting people in danger. I'm just trying to understand why you seem so insistent that the supernatural isn't real when you haven't even looked at...”

“Ghosts aren't real,” he cuts her off, turning to look at her and there's something like grief in his expression. “The dead are _dead._ They don't come back.”

Sansa feels her throat close up and she feels like she's about to cry. She takes a deep breath.

“Are you saying I'm a liar?” she whispers. “I saw my mom. I know I did.”

His expression softens and he brings a hand up to run over his face. “I'm sure you think you saw your mom,” he says it softly and she wants to hit him for being condescending.

“I know what my mom looks like. I know I saw her that night. I know she was supposed to be in White Harbor, dropping Robb off at camp. She was hundreds of miles away and _dead_ but I saw her in the kitchen.” She's shaking and she can't stop the tears that gather in her eyes. _Of all the times to be crying_ , she thinks furiously.

“Don't you think,” he says, turning back to face the woods, “that with all the people I've killed, with all the terrible things I've done, that if ghosts were real, at least one of them would come for me?”

“You were doing your job,” she says, voice shaking.

He turns and gives her a small, joyless smile. “Was I?”

Sansa doesn't know what to say to this. Jon Snow might not see apparitions, but he is absolutely being haunted.

She runs.

She doesn't know what to say to him or how to deal with him, so she flees upstairs to her room and when she gets there, she takes out the recorder and deletes everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie this got away from me. This was supposed to be a semi ridiculous one shot about ghost hunters and now it's absolutely about hauntings in general. I'm sorry. I have no real idea where this is going or what I'm doing but... eh. Here we go.
> 
> (oh, and the title of this fic is from Is There a Ghost by Band of Horses, which you should check out if you want an *ambiance*.)


	3. i could sleep

There's a rose bush that died years ago, out at the back of the inn. A beetle infestation, they'd battled them for weeks.

It's not in an area that guests frequent, and if he's being honest, having dead plants around a haunted inn seems appropriate. He's been meaning to rip it out for years, though, but it's such a small job and there's so much else to do, he's never gotten around to it.

He does it today. It's far from the inn and he won't have to see anyone all the way out here. It doesn't matter that even this close to the start of the forest with the shade of the trees, the sun is too bright and it's too hot out. It doesn't matter that he's already sweat through his shirt (he'd love to take it off, but he's at work and just in case a guest _does_ happen to wander this way, he doesn't need to be slapped with some sort of lawsuit). What matters is that he won't have to see anyone.

He digs the shovel further down into the packed soil, trying to get the tool under the root system and trying not to think of the mess he'd created, first running out of the interview and then practically telling Sansa that he was some sort of murderer (he is, but he shouldn't _tell_ people that).

The look of fear on her face had gutted him, but it also gave him a strange sort of satisfaction.

Sam and Gilly are always trying to tell him he's a good person. That he _isn't_ a murderer. That he didn't get the girl he loved killed. Jon never quite feels worthy of their belief in him. It feels like victory that Sansa sees him for what he is.

They're going to take the footage of him and make him into either a joke or a horror story.

He thinks he's both.

He feels the shovel wedge under something and he levers it, hearing dead roots snap and the bush lifts further out of the ground.

“I'm here to apologize.”

He nearly leaps at the voice and when he turns, Arya is leaning against one of the trees at the edge of the forest, arms crossed.

“What?” he says instead of _how did you sneak up on me_.

“Sansa says I should apologize,” she looks away from him like she's uncomfortable. “For asking you if you'd killed anyone. She said it was rude.”

Jon can't help himself and he snorts out a laugh and that makes Arya look at him again and a smile quirks her lips up.

“Rude?” he asks, bringing his arm up to try and wipe the sweat out of his eyes.

“Apparently I wasn't delicate enough with your feelings,” smile stretching wider and Jon finds himself smiling too. “I mean, her accusing you of endangering your guests with bad wiring wasn't rude, but _I_ was.”

They both laugh at that, not loudly, but enough that it lightens the tension in his shoulders.

Her smile fades and she shoves her hands into her pockets and shrugs a little. “I am sorry though. I shouldn't have asked it. Not then and not like that.” She kicks a little at the grass at her feet, “my therapist told me I like to push boundaries and make people feel uncomfortable because it gives me a sense of control.”

He nods a little and says “my therapist told me to avoid loud noises and sudden movements so instead I bought a ghost hotel.” She looks up at him and looks uncertain at first and he gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Watch mandated,” he explains, “PTSD and all that.”

She nods. “Child services mandated,” she says back and finally returns his smile. “It's all Sansa's fault. She kept talking about seeing mom's ghost and then Rickon started saying he saw dad in his room that night and then suddenly we're all in therapy.”

They stand in silence and he goes back to trying to pry the dead rose bush out of the ground. It's root system must be bigger than he expected, because it's not lifting out as well as he wants. He hears Arya move and suddenly she's next to him, reaching to grab the branches to help.

“Hold on,” he grunts, letting go of the shovel. “You don't have gloves.” The rose bush may be dead, but it's thorns are still there. They switch positions and she leans down on the shovel handle to lever the bush out while Jon grabs the branches and pulls and between them, they get it uprooted.

* * *

He's angry at himself for how much he likes them, all of them.

He likes tiny angry Arya and her sharp mind and sharper tongue. He likes giant Gendry who doesn't talk much but seems to make everyone around him feel just a little bit calmer (even Jeyne seems to be warming up to him quicker than she does with most men). He likes Meera with her sarcasm and the easy way she seems to manage the rest of them. He likes Bran and his enthusiasm as he explains how the camera equipment works to Gilly (who is very much not interested, but finds Bran amusing). He likes Sansa and her honesty, how open all of her expressions are and how seriously she takes everything.

He likes them all and he really shouldn't.

* * *

“I'm sure it'll be ok,” Gilly's saying once he's told her and Sam about the disaster of an interview. Tonight the Starks and company will be starting the actual ghost hunt and they're all over the inn today, mounting cameras and mics.

Jon, Gilly, and Sam are in the office. He'd rather be outside avoiding everyone, but he'd had to come in for some water and Gilly had cornered him.

“You didn't really give them anything, sounds like,” Sam is saying, trying to sound optimistic. “You said you were mostly silent?”

“That probably makes me look even more guilty,” Jon mutters.

“You aren't _guilty_ ,” Gilly scolds. “Stop it. I won't have you self pitying, you were doing so well.”

He had been, honestly. Maybe he wasn't ecstatically happy or anything, but he'd been content enough. Work during the days, home at night watching the game or reading some novel about ships. Avoid the ghost hunters when they come around. Routine.

Jon keeps the people he interacts with to a minimum. Sam, Gilly, Edd, the other employees. Guests when he has to. Sometimes he'll go into town (sometimes, when he's especially lonely, he lets Val take him home. They get along well enough, but neither of them are deluding themselves into thinking they're in a relationship. They're comfort to each other, two Northern ex-pats trying to escape their pasts down south).

He's not sure why these five _barely_ adults have so easily disrupted his peace ( _ok grandpa_ , Gilly's voice rings in his head and even though it's not real, it still makes him smile).

Gilly sighs when he doesn't respond to her and she takes little Sam out of big Sam's arms and dumps him on Jon.

“Hold the baby,” she says sternly. “Hold the baby, feel something, and stop being mopey.”

“Gil,” Sam puts his hand over his eyes. “You can't just...”

Jon laughs and shifts little Sam in his arms.

He does feel something.

* * *

Little Sam is having trouble taking his nap and Jon can tell Gilly is slowly losing her mind, so he takes little Sam from her and takes him for a walk around the back halls. Jon bounces little Sam ever so slightly and even tries to sing to him, soft and low (an old Northern lullaby that he just barely remembers his own mother singing to him). Jon knows he's not a good singer, but he feels confident enough that little Sam isn't going to judge him. He paces through the back halls, which are for employees only, except he forgot that the ghost hunters were given full access to the building to set up their cameras (except for the offices and the occupied guest rooms).

He turns down a hall and notices Sansa and Meera at the other end, Sansa holding a ladder and Meera up on it, sticking a camera to the wall. They both look at him and he halts his progress. He isn't quite sure how to feel when Sansa gives him a little smile and a wave.

The last time he'd seen her, she'd been fleeing from him in terror.

He doesn't continue down the hall and he gives her a nod in acknowledgment before he turns around and heads back towards the offices.

* * *

There's a knock on the office door and when he looks up, Sansa's standing in the doorway.

“So uh,” she says, looking around the room at anything but him. “We're gonna start filming as soon as it gets dark, I wanted to see if you wanted to be there.”

“For filming?”

“Yeah.” She seems to make a decision and steps further into the office and finally looks at him. “You said you never stay for any of the hunts, I figured this would give you a chance. You could see for yourself?” Before he even has a chance to answer, she hurries on, “you wouldn't have to be on camera, of course. You could just stay back with Bran and Meera and Gendry. Though we do like to use Gendry sometimes. Our viewers like him.”

She's rambling a bit and she seems to realize this because she clamps her mouth shut.

“I'm good, thanks,” he says as he leans back in his chair and he gets the exact reaction he was expecting. Her disappointment in him is palpable.

“Oh. So you're just gonna sit in the office all night then?”

“No,” he frowns, “I'll be at home.”

“But Gilly said you had to stay?”

She isn't lying to him, she'd have no reason to, but this is absolutely not the case. One of them does have to stay during ghost hunts, it's their protocol: an owner is always on site when there's a film crew running around. It's also protocol that it is never Jon. It's always Sam or Gilly. That's their agreement and it's always been that way, since day one.

Before the baby.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself.

Of course Gilly would assume he'd take this for them. It's been less than two months since little Sam was born, of course they didn't want to spend a night away from him if they didn't have to. They'd come in to work out the contracts and negotiations with the show, but obviously they thought Jon would do the overnight. Jon _had_ agreed to pick up any slack, he just hadn't expected _this_ to be the slack (he had been planning on turning down any shows that came calling until Sam and Gilly were available again, but he'd let Sansa and her wide eyes get the best of him).

He always was a sucker for a redhead with a cause.

(She's nothing like Ygritte, he concedes, just the red hair and the passion for what she believes in.)

“You should join us,” she says before she leaves his office.

* * *

“It's rare you're here during one of these,” Mel says with a small smile on her lips.

“Try never,” Jon grumbles. He's in the kitchen as Edd's cleaning up, getting ready to head out. Edd was from the Watch, too, got out a year after Jon and Sam. He's older and had done nearly twenty years before deciding to retire. He and Jon had always gotten along and when Edd had sent him a message about his retirement, Jon had offered him a job (he feels a distinct camaraderie with anyone who was there that night and he thinks that night is why Edd chose early retirement. It's why he and Sam had left).

Melisandre is the night manager and Jon thinks there's no one better suited to be a night manager at a haunted hotel than her. She's beautiful in an otherworldly way and if Jon was put on the spot, he'd be unable to guess her age. She could be thirty, she could be a hundred and thirty. Fake red hair the color of blood, pale skin, gothic choker and dress; aloof and always just slightly smiling, like she knows all your secrets.

“I'll be in the office,” he tells Mel. “Come get me if there's an emergency.”

Mel gives him a small smile and a tilt of her head that sends a shiver down his spine and he and Edd leave the kitchen. Edd says goodnight and Jon heads for the office to read his _Brandon the Shipwright_ novels.

Every so often during the night he hears the Starks talking, but he doesn't go out.

* * *

Gilly shows up around seven in the morning to relieve him. He's exhausted and heads to his house and falls into bed the minute he gets there.

To his dismay, he's doesn't sleep for very long. The Watch has made him unable to sleep past dawn, so by ten, he finds himself awake again.

When he tries to go to work, Gilly frowns at him and sends him home, so he busies himself around the house. He fixes an old drawer that doesn't shut properly and puts a fresh coat of paint on the front door and by the time evening rolls around, he's sufficiently exhausted.

He takes a shower and heats up some leftovers that he stole from what Edd made two nights ago and settles himself on the couch to watch football until it's time to pass out.

An hour into the game, there's a knock on the door and he wonders why Sam or Gilly would be stopping by so late, they should have gone home by now. Except it isn't Sam or Gilly, it's Sansa, standing in his doorway looking like she's regretting her decision to come.

She doesn't say anything and he doesn't say anything and he steps aside to let her in. He watches her take in his home and he wishes maybe he kept it a bit cleaner. His plate and beer bottle from dinner are still on the coffee table, the TV is on, it paints a certain picture that he's not sure he wants Sansa to see.

When she finally turns to him, he sees that she's holding something small in her hands, twisting it around in her fingers nervously. She holds it out for him and when he takes it, he recognizes it as a USB drive.

“Our findings,” she waves in the direction of the drive. “You didn't come out of the office last night.”

It's an accusation, she's disappointed in him. He wonders if he should tell her he won't look at whatever is on this drive, either. He won't watch their show.

He shrugs and says “got caught up in work.”

“Mel says you were just reading, not working.”

He laughs a little at that. Of course Mel would snitch.

She sees his book on the kitchen counter and walks over to it and makes a little noise, he can't tell why. Maybe it's the state of the book or maybe she just doesn't like ships. She runs her finger down the cracked spine and he guesses it's the condition she's upset about. He gets the feeling she likes things to look perfect.

He wants to ask her why she's here. She could have given the drive to Sam or Gilly to give to him. She could have left it in the office. She could have just let him watch the show.

He wants to ask her if she wants a drink. But he won't, he only has cheap beer and tap water and he wants to offer her neither of these.

He wants to ask her to leave. She doesn't belong in his house. She's too pretty and soft to be here.

She looks up at him and she's chewing on her bottom lip and he finds himself walking towards her. She doesn't tell him not to. She doesn't tell him to back away when he gets too close. She doesn't stop him from raising one hand to card through her hair and she doesn't stop him from leaning forward to press his lips to hers.

She should, though. She should tell him to stop. She _needs_ to tell him to stop because he knows he's not going to on his own.

Her lips are soft and slightly sticky with some sort of gloss and when she opens her mouth to him she tastes like sugar.

Her hands come up and fist in his shirt and his hand in her hair tightens and she lets out a sound that makes him think she likes it. She's kissing him back and she needs to tell him to stop. She isn't Val, this isn't anything like what he and Val have. She's young and she _believes_ in things and he is not someone to believe in. But she's kissing him back and she feels _so good_ and he's walking her backwards until she hits the kitchen counter and he's able to press himself against her and has it really been so long since he was last with Val?

He needs to stop this but he can't. She feels too good and it's been so long and these past couple days have ripped him open in a way he can't explain and his brain is foggy from exhaustion.

_Finally_ her hands unclench from his shirt and she lays them flat on his chest and pushes slightly. He pulls away from her and she stares at him, panting and wide-eyed.

He squeezes his eyes shut and manages to choke out a _sorry_ and he hears her run out of the house, the door clicking shut behind her.

* * *

The next day he avoids going inside the inn and tries to find work to do around the property. It isn't hard, in the summer there's always gardens to weed and bugs to spray for and he's been meaning to fix up the small bridge over the creek that runs behind the building. It's not broken, but he's been meaning to give it some railings for a while now, just in case.

He also watches them pack up, loading suitcases and equipment into the back of the rental van. He stays out of sight and it makes him feel gross. He shouldn't be _watching_ them, but he can't help it, he needs to make sure she's ok.

He can't believe he kissed her (not just kissed her, attacked her practically, when all she'd done was come to give him something). First the interview, then the kiss, he's made an absolute mess out of the last few days. Usually he's better than that, in control of his emotions, able to shut out the noise and the feelings and the memories. Something about these people ( _something about her_ ) has cracked him wide open and he's making mistakes.

Every once in a while, he sees her look out at the woods towards his house and he wonders if she's waiting for him to show up. If she's _dreading_ him showing up. He stays hidden and eventually they leave, Sam and Gilly chatting with them, seeing them off, Gilly bouncing little Sam and lifting his tiny arm in a tiny wave as the van starts to drive off.

They're gone, he should feel relieved.

* * *

He works himself raw for the rest of the day and when he finally stumbles home, he manages to stay awake long enough to strip out of his clothes and fall into bed. He's exhausted, he's barely slept in days and everything has been so _off_.

All he needs is one good night of sleep and everything can go back to normal.

His eyes are drifting shut when he sees a figure in the doorway of his bedroom, copper hair glinting in the moonlight.

“Sansa?” he mutters, eyes blurry from exhaustion. _Why is she here,_ he thinks. They left hours ago, they should be back in Riverrun by now.

But Sansa doesn't say anything and takes a step forward and something in Jon's brain shifts and he realizes it isn't Sansa. The figure is too short, the hair a different shade of red. More orange, frizzier.

He feels a panic rise up and adrenaline kicks in and he bolts upright as the figure takes another step towards him and he reaches over and almost knocks the lamp off the table but he manages to flip the light on and when he does, she's gone.

For the rest of the night he sits in bed with the light on and his heart slamming against his ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL.
> 
> So I've decided that this is where this story ends. At least this part. It's kind of open ended, but I also like ending it with Jon maybe seeing a ghost. At this point, I still haven't really decided if ghosts are actually real in this 'verse or not. I am going to continue this, though, cause I love this story a lot.
> 
> I'd like to thank anyone who made it this far. I know ghosts and hauntings and horror aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they are *absolutely* mine and I loved writing this, especially during my quarantine depression!


End file.
